Sunday, March 5, 2017

VEGETARIAN ACTION NEWSLETTER #36

OMNI’s MARCH VEGETARIAN POTLUCK is Wednesday, MARCH 8, 5:45, at OMNI, Center
for Peace, Justice, and Ecology (2ND Wednesdays) at the OMNI Center for Peace,
Justice, and Ecology. All are welcome. You may want to enjoy some
old or new vegetarian recipes, to talk about healthier food, or you are
concerned about cruelty to animals or warming and climate change.
Whatever your motive, come share vegetarian and vegan food and your views with
us in a friendly setting. As an extra treat, a Serbian
woman who teaches at UA, will be sharing a short video about International
Women's Day.

At OMNI, 3274 Lee Avenue, just east of the Village Inn and south
of Liquor World. More information: 935-4422; 442-4600.

Contents: Vegetarian
Action Newsletter #36, March 8, 2017

Health, Nutrition

VegNews (Feb.
2017)

Empathy, Compassion, Protection of
Animals

Steven Best, The
Politics of Total Liberation

Jim Mason, An
Unnatural Order

Carnivorism, Industrial Food System,
Climate Catastrophe

The Great Climate Robbery

Germany “Bans Meat at Official Functions”

“Denmark Ethics Council Calls for Tax on Red Meat”

Contents #35

Health, Nutrition

VegNews (Feb.
2017). Magazine
packed especially with vegan ads and
recipes for people who seek a more
compassionate world through vegan
foods. If you follow a vegan lifestyle you have
already made a
substantial choice for a
magnanimous, generous life.

Full-page Ads at the front of the magazine: “Lightlife,” Plant Protein, “Meat
without the middleman.”

I am honored that celebrated animal rights author, Norm Phelps, wrote the
Foreword to the book, and here is the critical praise on the back cover:

“This is an extraordinary book that shatters
all safe spaces found among the debris, torture, genocide, and despair
scattered throughout history by the so-called march towards progress.” –Peter
McLaren, Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Chapman University, USA,
Author of Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution

“For at least the last half century, a
biocentric revolution has been unfolding against the destructive tyranny of
anthropocentrism — a revolution guided by the natural laws of ecology against
the unnatural diminishment of nature at the hands of “civilized” man. In this
bold and timely book, Steven Best writes from, and has documented, the
evolution of this universal revolution, as he gives us a glimpse into the
catastrophic consequences should this revolution fail.” –Captain Paul Watson,
founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

“The Politics of Total Liberation is
groundbreaking with an innovative new approach to understanding the ills of our
society. Best makes is clear that we are losing the battle to save the
environment and animals because of greed, domination, control, and war
mongering created by humans. Best obviously did not write this to be popular,
safe, or political; rather, he wrote because his conscience told him that it is
right.” –Chris DeRose, President, Last Chance for Animals

“Steven Best gets it: if we are to stop
destructive human conditions and habits, we will need `the most uncompromising,
militant form of politics we can muster.’” –Jim Mason, author of An Unnatural
Order: The Roots of Our Destruction of Nature.

“I have no argument with Norm Phelps when he
states that `this may be the most important book of the 21st century’.” –Ronnie
Lee, founder of the Animal Liberation Front

First
published by Simon & Schuster in 1993 and then by Continuum in 1998, Jim Mason’s An
Unnatural Order: The Roots of Our Destruction of Naturehas become a classic. Now in
a new Lantern edition, the book explores, from an anthropological,
sociocultural, and holistic perspective, how and why we have cut ourselves off
from other animals and the natural world, and the toll this has taken on our
consciousness, our ability to steward nature wisely, and the will to control
our own tendencies.

“My own view is that the primal worldview, updated by a
scientific understanding of the living world, offers the best hope for a human
spirituality. Life on earth is the miracle, the sacred. The dynamic living
world is the creator, the First Being, the sustainer, and the final resting
place for all living beings — humans included. We humans evolved with other
living beings; their lives informed our lives. They provided models for our
existence; they shaped our minds and culture. With dominionism out of the way,
we could enjoy a deep sense of kinship with the other animals, which would give
us a deep sense of belonging to our living world. Then, once again, we could
feel for this world. We could feel included in the awesome family of living
beings. We could feel our continuum with the living world. We could, once
again, feel a genuine sense of the sacred in the world.” — Jim Mason

An Unnatural Order is a provocative search for the basic
beliefs of Western culture that feed racism, sexism, animal exploitation, and
domination of the natural world.

Nature writer Jim Mason begins this search
nearly 10,000 years ago when plants and animals were first domesticated — or
brought under human control. Until this time, people saw themselves as members
of the natural world. They saw animals as kindred beings and the living world
as full of ensouled powers.

The main theme of the book is that animals are
much more important than we think. Under our current worldview, animals are
trivial — except when they are useful. They are inferior beings and, we think,
they could not be important to human society except as food and slaves. But for
hundreds of millenia, animals have been very much on the human mind. Animals
have fed the mind and the imagination — especially our ideas about the living
world — for a very long time.

We
lived in the presence of animals as we were evolving into human beings. To
early humans, animals were the lively, moving parts of the mysterious living
world. They were the most fascinating things in the world. Like us, animals
ate, drank, slept, mated, eliminated, and died. They were familiar. They gave
us a sense of continuity with other life. They gave us a sense of belonging in
the living world. The huge variety of activities and patterns in animals’ lives
gave the developing human mind much to think about. In other words, animal have
figured greatly in the shaping of our views of the world. Little wonder, then,
that animals are the main figures in early art and myth.

Then about 8,000 B.C. the first agriculture
started in the ancient Middle East. Very slowly at first, farming began to
replace foraging throughout the ancient world. Gradually, as population,
cities, and human demands swelled, farming intensified — that is, farmers
increased their control over animals and nature. As they did so, they had to
tear down the very old beliefs in the sanctity and ensouled powers of the
living world. In their place, farming societies built the myth of human
supremacy and with it the idea of the need to dominate the living world. In
time, values on domination, control, and hierarchy became ingrained in agrarian
culture and the agrarian worldview became the modern worldview.

Our cultural heritage, then, is one that
alienates us from the living world, one that regards it as a slave. This stunts
human empathy and crushes any sense of kinship with other life. Moreover, our
nature-dominating worldview causes some dominant people to regard women, people
of color, and others as inferior, as closer to nature than to humanity. It also
causes us to regard as inferior the physical, emotional, sexual and other
“animal” aspects of human life, for these remind us of our closeness to animals
and nature.

Mason contends that these dominionist views
are at the bottom of society’s ever-deepening social and ecological crises. It
is vital, he believes, to revive that long-lost sense of kinship with animals
and nature. MORE http://www.jimmason.website/an-unnatural-order/

Industrial Food System, Carnivorism,
Climate Catastrophe

The Great Climate Robbery:
How the Food System Drives Climate Change and What We Can Do About It. 2016.
(Book Forum, March 5, 2017, FPL, 1:30.)

The Great Climate Robbery: How the Food System
Drives Climate Change and What We Can Do About It. Here's a short description of the book from
the back cover: ‘The Great Climate
Robbery explains how the industrial food system is a major driver of
climate change and how [local] food sovereignty is critical to any lasting and
just solution. With governments, particularly those from the main polluting
countries, abdicating their responsibility to deal with the problem, it has
become critical for people to take action into their own hands. Changing the
food system is perhaps the most important and effective place to start. This
book shows you how.’" Mainly and
excellently about the increasing industrial, that is corporate, control of food
production. Secondly, it explains the
cause and effects of industrialized agri and the onrushing climate
catastrophe. Thirdly and less
satisfactorily (true of many books on climate change solutions) is what we can
do about it, since its solutions are mainly conditional: IF we do x then we CAN do y, but these
essentially hopes are immensely complicated problems. That is not to say we should not try to solve
them, since possibly doable single solutions are merely partial and stopgap. And even this laudably comprehensive book
does not engage directly, for example, with stopping fossil fuel use or
carnivorism. --Dick

Germany Bans Meat at Official Functions to ‘Set a Good Example
for Climate Protection’. ENVIRONMENT, 27 February
2017

23 Feb 2017 – Eatingless meat is essential to curbingclimate change, which is why Germany’s
Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks is only servingvegetarianfood at official functions.

“We want to set a good example for climate protection, because
vegetarian food is moreclimate-friendlythan meat and fish,” the ministry said
in a statement published inThe Telegraph.
The ban was reportedly enacted at the end of January.

The German newspaperBildalso reported that the food served at
official events should be organic, seasonal, local and only travel from short
distances. Fair trade products are also preferable.

Slashing meat consumptionsaves the lives of animals,lowers our carbon footprintand leads tobetter health.A studyfrom the Oxford Martin School
found that diets of limited meat consumption can cut emissions by a third while
saving 5 million lives, vegetarian diets could reduce emissions by 63 percent
and save 7 million lives, andvegandiets
could reduce emissions by 70 percent and save 8 million lives.

But what aboutseafood? Well,
the world’s appetite for fish andshrimpis also stressing out supplies. A
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organizationreportfound
that nearly 90 percent of global fish stocks are either fully fished or
overfished. Global fish consumption per capita has reached record-high levels
due to aquaculture and firm demand, with the average person now eating roughly
44 pounds of fish per year compared to only 22 pounds in the 1960s, the report
found.

For a meat-loving nation known for its sausages, schnitzel and
cold cuts, the message was not welcomed by all.

Rival German politicians have accused Hendricks, a member of the
Social Democratic Party, of forcing vegetarianism on people and leveraging the
meat ban as political ammo. The Social Democrats are challenging the Christian
Democrats, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party, in this year’s tight race for
German Chancellor.

“I’m not having this Veggie Day through the back door,” said
Christian Schmidt, minister of food and agriculture and Christian Democrat. “I
believe in diversity and freedom of choice, not nanny-statism and ideology.
Instead of paternalism and ideology. Meat and fish are also part of a balanced
diet.”

Others have also accused Hendricks of hypocrisy in that the meat
ban only applies to official functions. Ministry officials would still be able
to consume meat or fish in the staff canteen.

“You have to eat what’s on the table according to the will of
the ministry. No meat, no fish, and the cover of ‘climate protection,'” Gitta
Conneman, a senior MP and Christian Democrat, told Bild. “They won’t save the
climate by branding people who eat meat, and they know this. The ban only
applies to a handful of guests, not to 1,200 employees. This is pure ideology,
a ‘people’s education’ for the diet.”

But the ministrysaidit wants to be a “role model” and
justified their provision to fight the negative “effects of the consumption of
meat.”

Steak and other red meats would be taxed highest - but all
food could ultimately be targeted Getty Images

Denmark is
considering proposals to introduce a tax on red meat, after a government think
tank came to the conclusion that “climate change is an ethical problem”.

The Danish Council of Ethics recommended an
initial tax on beef, with a view to extending the regulation to all red meats
in future. It said that in the long term, the tax should apply to all foods at
varying levels depending on climate impact.

The council voted in favour of the measures by
an overwhelming majority, and the proposal will now be put forward for
consideration by the government.

“The Danish way of life is far from
climate-sustainable, and if we are to live up to the Paris Agreement target of
keeping the global temperature rise 'well' below 2°C, it is necessary both to
act quickly and involve food,” the council said.

Cattle alone account for some 10 per cent of
global greenhouse gas emissions, while the production of food as a whole makes
up between 19 and 29 per cent, the council said.

Danes were “ethically obliged” to change their
eating habits, it said, adding that it is “unproblematic” to cut out beef and
still enjoy a healthy and nutritious diet.
MORE

“For a
response to climate-damaging food to be effective, while also contributing to
raise awareness of the challenge of climate change, it must be shared,” said
council spokesman Mickey Gjerris.

“This requires society to send a clear signal
through regulation.”

It has been a tough few months for fans of red meat, with consumption down after the World Health
Organisation warned of an associated cancer risk.

Saving The
Planet, One Burger At A Time: This Juicy Patty Is Meat-Free

February
11, 20176:21 AM ET

At Saxon + Parole, a New York
City restaurant, chef Brad Farmerie serves up the Impossible Burger, a
plant-based burger that sizzles, smells and even bleeds like the real thing.

Allison
Aubrey/NPR. A
Michelin-starred restaurant in New York City debuted a new dish last week
that's getting a lot of buzz. It's a burger made entirely from plants.

This isn't just another veggie
knock off. The rap is that this burger looks, cooks and even bleeds like the
real thing.

The Impossible Burger, as it's
known, is the culmination of a dream for Pat Brown. For 25 years, Brown was a
professor at Stanford University. He was one of the stars in his field,
studying a range of biomedical topics.

"Genetics and genomics ...
cancer research — nothing to do with food," says Brown.

But about seven years ago, his
work took a turn when, during a sabbatical, he decided to tackle what he saw as
a really big problem for the planet: animal livestock farming.

"The use of animals as a
technology for food production is the most destructive technology on
Earth," Brown says.

It's a strong position. But he
says there's a lot of science to back him up.

What It Takes To Make A
Quarter-Pound Hamburger

Think of all U.S. crop land.Two-thirdsof all the calories produced from the
crops are used for animal feed to produce meat, dairy and other animal
products. Livestock production also uses lots of water and is a major
contributor to climate change. Animal farming producesabout as many greenhouse gas
emissionsas the
entire Southern Hemisphere, for example.

The ecological footprint of meat
production is not sustainable, Brown argues. But the obvious problem is this:
Billions of people around the world love meat. We've been eating it for
thousands of years.

"You're not going to get
people to change their diets. You know, stop eating meat, fish and dairy —
ain't gonna happen," Brown says.

After all, veggie burgers have
been around a long time and they certainly haven't replaced beef in people's
diets.

Now, what Brown wanted was to literally re-create the taste of
beef — without cows. So he started by deconstructing the composition of meat, down
to the molecular level.